Mystic Temple proved a fun experience for our group. Even though it wasn’t the most novel escape room, the quality of the materials and the integration of the puzzles’ physical elements into the theme kept us engaged.

The lobby space nicely captures an understated steampunk vibe and was well-appointed, especially for having just opened. The owner mentioned upcoming improvements, including more interactive elements in the pre-game spaces which are currently in development. They have a plan for lobby activities, including a fully scripted meta game that helps players dive into the overarching story behind all of their games (Fun Stuff!). The staff were welcoming and engaging. The space is appointed with large, clean bathrooms well outside the waiting area. The elegance of the space is even captured in the period water carafe and slender glasses for guests, in lieu of a cubicle-farm water stand. Others in our group described the space as elegant and distinguished. The owner was even mindful to give due credit to Escape Realm, who helped build out the physical space, having one above and beyond for noise-insulation, lighting effects and visual appeal.

The room quality is great. It is well designed with excellent use of sound effects and lighting. Some of the props came across as slightly less quality (plastic materials, lightweight rocks, etc) than would be expected by the look of the room but it didn’t interfere with how much we enjoyed it. Everything certainly looked the part. Their assistance from Escape Realm was a wise decision. The owners are committed to the quality of their rooms and it shows by how great the room looks. The room is solidly built with well integrated technology. The TV screen mounted in the room — which displays your time and gives you hints if desired — blends in nicely with the decor. The technical interfaces worked well and as expected. As we learned from the owners, the walls have high-end, professional insulation to keep the noise from outside the room from intruding on your adventure. This can be quite frustrating and distracting if you’ve experienced the noise from adjacent rooms before and this attention to detail is very much appreciated. One of the areas of the room was a little cramped which took away from some of the “temple” feel but was otherwise equally well made and fit the theme. There may be some better quality rooms out there, with floor to ceiling design and higher quality props, but nobody in our group had much to complain about. Overall, this is room shows high quality workmanship and we can only imagine how much the owners will continue to improve the space.

Our group experienced varying degrees of immersion. The business is still working to improve the newly opened room which includes some restructuring of the narrative to fully incorporate all of the puzzles and room props. It felt more immersive at first but the later puzzles didn’t seem to connect to the main storyline at times. We are glad to see that the owners are working on addressing these minute details. Some puzzles totally made you feel stuck in a Mayan temple full of “booby traps”, including using your limbs in novel ways. The visual and tactile qualities of the environment definitely help you feel immersed. Despite some small room for improvement, this is still far and away more immersive than most rooms we’ve experienced previously.

The puzzle design, visual and tactile appeal, were all high and proved fun. Some puzzles required unique interactions and novel processes with the environment, which caught our attention. At the same time, we experienced some repetitiveness with lots of order/sequencing puzzles. We were hungry for more novelty. Some of the hints hidden within the room were obscure, adding to the challenge. The puzzles were heavy on pattern recognition and order-driven. They were very engaging, but appealed to the same part of the brain. We would like to see more diversity of puzzle types. Nevertheless, some of the puzzles were difficult and we escaped with a mere 14 seconds to spare. Phew!!!

Overall this was a very fun room. Several of us walked out thinking that it was one of the most fun we’ve had at a room in a while. Many of the critiques we had about the quality which is pretty high, the puzzles and the immersion factors are pretty minor and easily fixed with small tweaks. The owners are working on them as we speak. They are dedicated to having the best rooms around. We seriously cannot wait to see what they have up their sleeves with their upcoming rooms and to see how they’ve managed to improve this one. Definitely, come down the Rabbit Hole!